


An Educational Experience

by borealowl



Series: Four Cups of Wine and related stories [5]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: (teacher in this case), M/M, POV Crowley (Good Omens), POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-03-03
Packaged: 2021-02-22 12:02:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22982458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/borealowl/pseuds/borealowl
Summary: Aziraphale and Crowley attend a parent-teacher conference in their friends' stead. The teacher will never be the same. (But he kinda deserves it.)
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley & OCs, Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Four Cups of Wine and related stories [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1605910
Comments: 97
Kudos: 444





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wren Truesong (waywren)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/waywren/gifts).



> There's a mild content warning for ableism here. Miriam's teacher is based on some teachers I have been unfortunate enough to have and/or work with, and as the POV character in the second chapter, the reader does get exposed to his unfortunate way of looking at the world. I toned it down a lot, because actually having him say the sort of things I remember hearing made him come across as cartoonishly evil. But the warning is there.

It’s mid-October, and Crowley is having an excellent afternoon. The rooftop garden is sunny and warm, and he’s dozing on the bench with his head in Aziraphale’s lap, listening to the angel turning the pages of his book. His favorite human child, Miriam, is sitting in a lawn chair reading her history textbook on her tablet.

Or at least she’s supposed to be.

“Hey, can angels and demons have babies together?”

Crowley sits up and squints at Miriam. He can’t have heard her correctly. “We already have _you_ ,” he says.

“If you want a sibling, my dear, that’s really something you should talk to your mothers about,” says Aziraphale, sounding rather flustered.

“I didn’t mean you guys!” says Miriam with all the horror of any child reminded that her parental figures might be capable of sex.

“Then why do you ask?”

“We-ell, it’s because of something Adelaide said.”

“Who’s Adelaide?” asks Crowley.

“You’ve met her. She’s got wavy hair, she’s tall—well, taller than me—“

“That’s not very tall,” interjects Crowley. She sticks her tongue out at him.

“ _Anyway,_ she’s my friend.”

“I think I remember her from my visit to your school last year,” says Aziraphale. “Was she the one that wants to own a bookshop? She certainly asked me a lot of questions about it.”

“Yeah, that’s her. She’s gotten really into drawing, and her newest OC is supposed to be half-demon, half-angel. And I know she’s just making it up, but it did make me wonder if it was possible.”

“To the best of my knowledge, it isn’t,” says Aziraphale, “But I was never kept particularly well-informed on such matters. Aren’t you supposed to be studying?”

“Oops, I got distracted.” She picks her tablet up, and she and Aziraphale both go back to their reading. Crowley slides down the bench and stretches his legs across the patio. It would be extremely immature to kick Miriam’s lawn chair, so of course he does it. She ignores him at first, but the effort of keeping a straight face becomes too much and she giggles. “Bored?”

“A little,” Crowley admits.

“Want to help me study for the history quiz? You can tell me interesting details about the events and maybe it’ll help me remember them better. ”

He grins. “I can try, but if I don’t remember anything I’m going to make up outlandish lies instead.”

She sticks her tongue out at him. “Zira, will you tell me if he’s making up outlandish lies?”

“Of course, my dear,” replies the angel, not bothering to look up from his book.

“Ruining all my fun,” mutters Crowley. Miriam giggles again, then returns to her textbook.

“Do you remember the Dreyfuss Affair?”

He thinks about it for a moment. “It doesn’t sound familiar, but I wasn’t there for every big event. A lot of them happened at the same time but on different sides of the planet.”

“Yeah, but you probably kept track of them, right?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes I’d just get a commendation for something and then I’d have to go figure out why.” And then usually regretted it.

“I don’t think the Dreyfuss Affair was on the other side of the planet from you. The books says it was in France, from 1894 until 1906.”

“Oh, yeah, not going to remember any of that, that was during my nap.”

“You napped for eight whole years?”

He shrugged. “I was tired.”

Aziraphale—still not looking up from his book—says, “That’s not an outlandish lie, but it borders on _suppressio veri_.”

“What’s that?”

“A lie by omission,” says Crowley, resigned. “It was a little longer than eight years.”

“It was almost a century, and I was _extremely_ worried.”

“Oh, don’t exaggerate. It was not ‘almost a century.’ It was only about fifty years.”

“That’s still a long time to sleep,” says Miriam. “Were you really depressed or something?”

“Ah, er, well.” He keeps forgetting that his humans are more perceptive than most. “Yeah, I guess.”

“He was sulking,” says Aziraphale.

“I was not _sulking_. I was justifiably upset that my best friend wasn’t willing to help me with one simple favor that I needed for my own safety.”

“He was sulking because I wouldn’t give him a deadly weapon that would have utterly obliterated him if he came into contact with so much as a droplet.”

Crowley glares at him, but Aziraphale is keeping his eyes fixed on the pages in front of him.

“You slept for fifty years because you and Aziraphale got into a fight?” asks Miriam.

“Maybe,” he mutters.

She thinks about this, and shrugs. “Actually, yeah, that makes sense. I always get sleepy when I’m sad, too.”

“Hah!” Crowley looks at Aziraphale in triumph. “See, it was a completely reasonable response.”

Aziraphale does not look his way, but the corners of his mouth twitch up. Crowley realizes that he’s bragging about having the emotional maturity of a twelve year-old—albeit a clever one—but the angel is too polite to point this out.

Miriam, intent on uncovering the story, continues her questions. “So what made you wake up? Were you feeling better by then?”

“Not really,” says Crowley with a shrug. “But I got a phone call from Below congratulating me for assassinating some Archduke, and figured I’d better get up and see what all the fuss was about.” He shudders, remembering the ensuing war. “Should have stayed in bed for another decade. Could have woken up in the twenties instead. That was a lot more fun.”

“Did you guys start talking again after you woke up?”

Aziraphale answers her first, sounding rather put out. “Oh, no, that would have been _far_ too considerate of him. He didn’t even let me know he was awake. No, I didn’t see him until the 1940s.”

“When I saved you from Nazis. _And_ your books.” Now it’s Crowley’s turn to sound offended.

Aziraphale finally sets his book aside, and looks down at Crowley with his softest, fondest smile. “You did, dearest, and I’m very grateful.”

“Hmph.” He can’t maintain his faux indignation for long, not against that smile. He grins up at Aziraphale. “I’ll blow up Nazis for you anytime you want.”

Miriam, having already heard this story, returns to her original topic.

“Zira, do _you_ remember the Dreyfuss Affair?”

“I do, actually. What a dreadful mess that was.” He looks back down at Crowley. “Actually, your side did give you credit for that one.”

“They did? Wait, how would you know?”

The angel smiles smugly. “I filed the paperwork for it myself.”

Crowley pushes himself back into a sitting position. “You _what?_ ”

“Really, Crowley, don’t you think your side would have noticed if you went silent for a half-century? I filed reports on your behalf every few years. It was rather a lot of work keeping track of current affairs around the globe. I had to read quite a few newspapers.”

“Oh yes, reading, what a horrible trial for you,” says Crowley. Aziraphale ignores him.

“Since you remember Dreyfuss, can you tell me more about what happened?” asks Miriam. “I think I might write my term paper about it.”

“I’d be happy to.” He thinks for a moment. “You know, I may still have the newspapers covering the affair somewhere in my shop. I tried to keep records on everything I claimed for Crowley, in case he needed them. Perhaps I could send you a facsimile of them.”

“A what?”

Crowley sighs. “Angel, why do you even still have a fax machine? No one’s used them in thirty years. Don’t worry,” he says to Miriam. “I’ll scan them for you when we get home.”

“Thanks!”

*****

Later that evening, they’re all eating dinner and talking about their days, when Miriam gives a little jump. “Oh! That reminds me. Did you get the email from Mr. Pauley about parent-teacher conferences next week? He said that some parents still hadn’t signed up for a time slot.”

“Gahhhh!” Naomi groans, pressing her palm into her forehead. “I completely forgot. Which day is it again?”

“This Thursday. Day after the day after tomorrow.”

Naomi looks at Yael. “You’ll have to go, hon. That’s when Dr. Chiong’s guest talk is, and I have to introduce her.”

Yael shakes her head. “I don’t know if I can make it either. I have to be at the federal courthouse in Newark all day, and I doubt I’ll make it back in time, even if they let us out in time. Which they almost certainly won’t.”

“Wait, who has a hearing in Newark?” asks Naomi.

Yael sighs. “Rukiye.”

Naomi winces in sympathy. Crowley has actually met Rukiye, a remarkably cheerful young woman who speaks fives languages and is dealing with a tangle of legal issues that Kafka would have thought was a little much. (Crowley can say this with some confidence, having known the man fairly well.) Crowley rather likes her—she has a sarcastic sense of humor, especially when speaking Turkish or Farsi or her native Uyghur. Aziraphale likes her because she sometimes makes baked goods for everyone at Yael’s office. She’s a talented cook, and after Aziraphale complimented her nang, she started including a few extra treats in each package for Yael to take home to her family. Crowley suspects that if Rukiye’s case isn’t resolved soon, things might miraculously work out for her regardless. The biggest question is which of them will do it first.

Naomi sighs. “Okay, yeah, you can’t miss that. But I really can’t skip out on Lily’s talk—I’m the one who invited her!” She looks at her phone. “There’s an option here to sign up for an alternate time, but it’s grayed out. I guess I’ll have to email your teacher and set something up.”

“Sorry, sweetheart.” Yael smiles apologetically at her daughter. “We dropped the ball on this one.”

Miriam shrugs. “It’s just a mid-term progress thing, so you can ask questions about my report card or whatever.”

“Yes, but it would be good to check in. Especially because you don’t seem to like this homeroom teacher as much as last year’s.”

“Yeah, I miss Ms. Thayil. She’s great.”

“I was rather fond of her as well,” says Aziraphale. Crowley nods agreement. Miriam’s previous teacher had been remarkably open-minded about allowing a snake in her classroom. The truly remarkable part was that she’d allowed him back a second time, albeit only under Aziraphale’s supervision.

Miriam continues, “Mr. Pauley is fine, I guess, he’s just not very understanding. He acts like I’m disorganized on purpose. And he gets annoyed when I’m not paying attention.”

Yael frowns. “This is exactly why we need to talk with him again. He should know by now that you’re not doing it on purpose.” She pulls out her own phone and glares at it. “No, there’s really no way I can make it back in time. Maybe I can do it as a videoconference from the train?”

Crowley feels a gentle nudge from Aziraphale’s elbow, and turns to see the angel looking at him, one eyebrow raised in inquiry. Crowley mouths a silent, “Really?”

Aziraphale shrugs and mouths back “Why not?” Crowley rolls his eyes—not that anyone can see it, but he feels the need to express his exasperation regardless. “Fine,” he whispers.

There’s a snort of quiet amusement from Naomi, and he and Aziraphale turn to see the three humans watching them. Their silent conversation had apparently been less subtle than they’d thought. Aziraphale clears his throat.

“We could attend in your stead, if that would be helpful,” he says.

“Or entertainingly unhelpful,” Crowley adds.

“I would like to meet Miriam’s teacher,” Aziraphale continues. “And you could still schedule your own conference with him afterwards, if you’re not satisfied with our results.”

Yael gives them both a long, considering look.

“Not sure you can trust us?” asks Crowley. She makes a face.

“Crowley. Of course we trust you. I’m just not sure whether it will be a waste of your time.”

Crowley grins, unaccountably warmed. They _shouldn’t_ trust him, of course, he’s a demon. But he still likes that they do, even if it’s only because they don’t actually _know_ that he’s a demon. He could tell himself that it’s all part of some long con, getting their trust like this, but he’s not fooling anyone. He doesn’t _have_ to fool anyone anymore. 

“ _That’s_ not a problem, we have plenty of time.” If only Naomi and Yael knew how much. “Anyway, Zira’s right, you can always talk to him yourselves later. We’ll just… soften him up for you first.”

“Oh dear,” Yael murmurs. She turns to her daughter. “What do you think?”

“I think it’s a great idea!” Miriam says. There’s a definite sense of mischief in her grin, and Crowley is proud that he’s managed to teach this small human a healthy appreciation of mayhem. Her eyes widen as a new idea occurs to her. “Wait, does that mean that you’ll stay until Thursday?”

“I suppose so,” Aziraphale says.

“Yay! Then I’m doubly fine with it!”

“Okay, I guess I’ll sign you up for a time slot. Should I put a note in the comment field saying that you’re coming instead?” Naomi looks down at her phone.

“Nah,” says Crowley. “Why lose the element of surprise?”

“Oh dear,” Yael murmurs again, but Crowley can tell she’s fighting down a smile.


	2. Chapter 2

Lexi Grafton’s mother smiles, shakes his hand, and exits the classroom, giving Mr. Pauley a precious five minutes’ breathing space before the last parent-teacher conference of the evening. He doesn’t need to check the list to know whose parents are next.

Martin Pauley knows a teacher shouldn’t have favorites. He also knows that every teacher does, and he’s no exception. But he tries to treat every student well—he’s the cool teacher, the one who isn’t afraid to talk about his personal life, or let the kids give him weird nicknames. He even brought his iguanas to class and walked around with them during the algebra placement exam last year, until he was told off for distracting the kids during an important test. He’s the fun teacher, and the kids like him, and he likes them back. Most of them, anyway.

He shouldn’t dislike Miriam Lipsky--he shouldn’t dislike any students—but he can’t help it. She doesn’t pay attention, and she doesn’t listen well, and she’s just kind of odd. When she cares about something, she’s unnervingly intense, and she’ll argue with him in front of the whole class, derailing the lesson. When she doesn’t care, she spaces out and fidgets. He’s pretty sure she doesn’t like him much either. Still, he tries to be fair. And she’s not the only frustrating student. Adelaide daydreams all the time, Lyle’s a mess, and Lexi is is even worse—she never does her homework, she loses her notes, and when he criticizes her in class she just cries. It’s embarrassing. Fortunately, Lexi’s mother seems to agree that the kid needs to try harder, and didn’t seem inclined to blame him.

But he has no idea how this next meeting is going to go. He’s only met Miriam’s parents once, at the beginning of the school year. He mostly just remembers that they’re lesbians, well-educated—one is a college professor and the other works in the nonprofit sector—and very Jewish, though that's hardly unusual in Brooklyn. They didn’t seem like the sort of intense helicopter parents who would pitch a fit over every A-, but who knows. Some parents wait until the first midterm progress reports come in before they flip out. 

The timer on his phone dings, and he gets up to invite Miriam’s mothers in. But when he opens the classroom door, he doesn’t see them. The only people in the hallway are two men. They’re an odd couple—and definitely a couple, given how they're standing together. One is all in black, wearing dark sunglasses and snakeskin shoes, of all things. With that outfit, and his long hair in a sort of man-bun, he looks like some out-of-touch old cartoonist’s idea of a hipster. All he lacks is the ironic facial hair.

The other one seems to stepped right out of the old British TV shows Pauley’s grandmother used to watch on PBS. He’s wearing a _vest_. And a _bowtie_ , for fuck’s sake. He looks like he should be in an overgrown garden, solving mysteries over tea and scones. (Pauley has never been to England, but he did spend a lot of his childhood watching public television with his grandmother, who liked mystery shows and believed that anything British was inherently educational and good for children, on account of the fancy accents.) Both men look oddly familiar, but he can’t remember where he’s seen them. He’s met all of his students’ parents already.

The hipster brushes past him and starts prowling around the classroom, examining all the posters and educational materials. Pauley turns to the other one, still standing in the doorway.

“I’m sorry, my next appointment is actually with Miriam Lipsky’s mothers,” he says. The man smiles, radiating a sort of distracted benevolence.

“Oh yes, I should have said. Neither Naomi nor Yael could attend tonight, so we’re here in their stead. We’re Miriam’s uncles.” His voice sounds exactly like Pauley had imagined it—right out of one of those old shows. Pauley is charmed despite himself.

“Oh, of course, the ones from England. I knew I'd seen you before.” Now he knows why they look familiar—he’s spotted them in the audience of various school plays and talent shows and such over the past couple years. Serena Thayil, one of the seventh grade teachers, had mentioned them a few times. _A little strange—more than a little— but essentially harmless_ , she’d said, or variations on that theme, always with a mildly harried look on her face. But that’s a common expression to see in the faculty lounge. 

“It's great to meet you both. However, I’m afraid that I can’t actually discuss students with people other than their parents or legal guardians.” He feels a little bad sending them away, but the school’s policies exist for a reason, and anyway, it would be nice to wrap up the meetings and go home early. Plus, these two do seem a little strange.

“Good thing we filed all that special paperwork with the school, _right,_ angel?” the one in sunglasses calls from across the classroom.

The man in front of him continues to smile. “Ah, yes, of course, the paperwork.” He waves a vague hand towards Pauley’s desk. “I’m sure that if you check Miriam’s file, you’ll see that we are empowered to act as her guardians when her mothers are not available.”

Mr. Pauley sighs. He has no memory of seeing any such paperwork, but it’s been a chaotic semester—it’s always a chaotic semester—and he can’t imagine that this man would lie about anything. He checks anyway, and sure enough, there’s several pages of forms granting them parental status, signed by both men, Miriam’s parents, and the principal. They’re even notarized, which isn't a requirement. He must have gotten distracted and overlooked the forms when he was reviewing her file earlier.

“Huh, look at that. Everything is all in order. Sorry, not sure how I missed that before.”

Rather than looking annoyed, the man in front of him seems mildly embarrassed, as if the mix-up was his fault, rather than Pauley's.

“I _do_ apologize for the unexpected change. I’m Zira Fell. Dr. Fell, if you wish to be formal.”

The one in black lets out an aggrieved sigh. “Typical. You spent years never bothering to tell _me_ that you’d done a PhD, but as soon as you make friends with Naomi, suddenly you want to be called ‘doctor,’ all the time too.”

“I would have been happy to tell you, dearest, but you were asleep.” says Fell mildly. “And there’s nothing stopping you from getting an advanced degree of your own, you know.”

At first Pauley is utterly confused, but then he realizes that these two are clearly the sort of insufferable couple who communicate entirely via in-jokes and forget that other people exist. He resolves to politely ignore it if at all possible.

“And you must be Miriam’s other uncle,” he says, extending a hand to the one in black.

“Anthony Crowley,” the man says with the kind of oddly predatory smile that Pauley associates with sleazy TV lawyers, or maybe record label executives. The effect is enhanced by his sunglasses, which Crowley seems disinclined to remove. He doesn’t take Pauley’s offered hand, and his grin stretches wider as the awkwardness builds.

“Well, uh, it’s nice to meet you both,” he says, retreating behind his desk. He motions toward the two chairs on the other side. “Please, take a seat.”

Dr. Fell sits immediately, hands folded in his lap. Crowley slouches into the other chair, arms crossed, legs splayed out in opposite directions.

“So!” Pauley says brightly, determined to regain control of this meeting and wrap it up as quickly as possible. “I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to review Miriam’s progress report yet, but I can give you a copy. Do you have any questions?”

Fell leans forward. “I understand that you’re covering the Dreyfuss Affair in your class. Are you having them read Zola as well? I’ve always found that period literature can enhance one’s memories—er, impressions—of earlier times.”

Pauley looks at him in confusion. “The Dreyfuss Affair? We’re still covering the Revolutionary War.”

“Which one?” asks Crowley.

“Excuse me?”

“There’ve been lots of revolutionary wars.” He starts ticking them off on his fingers. “French, Spanish, French again, American, _lots_ of Chinese revolutions, Meiji, Haitian—that was a good one—probably another French one, I can’t really keep track, that whole thing with Cromwell—was that one of yours?” he turns to his husband.

“I always thought it was one of yours. And I’d hardly call the Meiji Ishin a _revolution_ , it was really more of a reformation.”

“Excuse me?” says Pauley again, steadfastly ignoring what has to be another in-joke. “I think we’ve gotten off track. We’re covering the American Revolutionary War in class. The one in 1776. If Miriam is talking about the Dreyfuss Affair, then she must be reading ahead in the textbook again.” He’s somehow not surprised that this seems to delight Dr. Fell—Miriam has mentioned that he owns a bookstore, so presumably he’s just happy that she’s reading. But it’s mildly annoying to Pauley. She keeps reading ahead but not paying attention to the classroom discussions. It’s like she’s going out of her way not to try.

He hands copies of her progress report to her uncles. “If you’d like to take a minute to look over these, feel free. I don’t teach art or PE, but those are pass-fail anyway, and I can answer questions about her other grades. Well, they aren’t _grades_ ,” he corrects himself, “those won’t come until the end of the semester. These are just progress indicators. But an S is roughly a high B or an A, an N is a low B or a C, and anything below that is a U.”

“And what do the A, B, and C stand for?” asks Dr. Fell.

For a moment he’s not sure how to answer. “Uh, they’re grades.” Then he realizes that England probably uses a different system. “A through F. A is the best, F is failing. I think we have a conversion chart to percentages somewhere, if you need it.”

“My, how very cryptographic. Is it really so necessary to rank them?”

Pauley’s at a bit of a loss. He knows that there’s a growing movement to ban grades, and he could imagine some social justice-y parent getting behind it, but he’s not sure how to explain the basic concept of evaluation metrics to this stuffy English academic.

“Status games, angel,” says Crowley. “Gotta start early if you want them to be properly insecure.” There’s something slightly off about his smile. “You have to admit it made our jobs easier.”

What an odd thing to say. Pauley wonders if the man works in advertising. 

“ _Your_ job, perhaps. I’ve always found that people respond best to gentle encouragement.”

“Since when is drowning a form of gentle encouragement?”

“You _know_ I wasn’t consulted on that.”

“This is an interesting conversation,” interjects Pauley, trying once again to drag them back on track, “but we only have another 15 minutes left for this meeting, and I will need you to sign Miriam’s progress report to show that we’ve discussed it. So if you have any questions about it, now’s the time.”

The air in the room feels slightly off. It reminds Pauley of his old apartment, the fourth floor walkup that had radiator heat controlled by his landlord. Sometimes in the winter it would get so hot that he had to open a window, and then he’d be lying in bed hit by blasts of dry heat on one side and freezing wind on the other. The classroom is climate-controlled, but somehow it feels the same, like his body can’t make up its mind whether it’s overheating or chilled. Maybe he’s coming down with a cold. He does feel a bit feverish.

Dr. Fell looks up from the piece of paper. “I’m sorry, but can you remind me what the ’N’ stands for?”

“Needs improvement. It’s not too serious, but it does mean that there’s room to work on the issue.”

“I see that Miriam has an N for class participation. What exactly does class participation entail?”

Pauley suppresses a sigh. “Class participation covers attendance, contributions to class discussions, answering when called on, and such. Miriam is clearly very bright, but she doesn’t pay attention in class, and when I call on her, she often doesn’t even hear the question the first time.”

“Maybe you should be less boring,” says Crowley, who has been slowly sliding down his chair. This isn’t the first time Pauley’s received pushback from overly indulgent parents, but normally they have better posture. Pauley opens his mouth to respond, but he’s preempted by the man’s husband.

“Crowley!” Dr. Fell sounds more exasperated than shocked. Crowley is probably an asshole to everyone. “I _do_ apologize for his rudeness. I’m sure you’re doing your _very_ best to enliven the classroom environment.”

Somehow, the man’s condescending reassurance is more annoying than Crowley’s rudeness. Pauley does try to make class interesting! He tells jokes! He even brought in his guitar and played a few songs for the kids. He’s the _cool_ teacher.

“Regardless,” Fell continues, presumably oblivious to the offense he’s causing, “It does sound like your definition of class participation is rather narrow. Children learn in many different ways, as you’re no doubt aware.”

Crowley snorts, and slides down further in his chair until only the top of his head is visible from Pauley’s side of the desk.

“Yes, I’m well aware, but we use a standard rubric to keep things fair. And it’s clear that Miriam _can_ pay attention when she wants to, she just isn’t willing to put in the effort.”

Dr. Fell stiffens, and there’s an unexpected crackle of ozone in the air. With an eerie boneless grace, Crowley slides out of the chair and onto his feet, and places a hand on his husband’s shoulder. Pauley hears him mutter, “Careful, angel.”

“Mr. Pauley, I believe that you misunderstand the situation.” Fell’s voice sounds different, but maybe that’s because Pauley’s ears just popped from the sudden change in the air pressure. He tries to remember if a storm was predicted for tonight.

“Why do you have to use a standard rubric?” Crowley asks suddenly.

“As I said, it wouldn’t be fair to judge the students by different standards.” This is only partly true. He has to follow formal accommodations requests, and even setting those aside, he know that he tends to treat each student a little differently. Not based on how smart they are, but based on whether they’re engaged. It’s laziness and indifference and carelessness that frustrate him. It’s disrespectful.

Crowley leans forward, both elbows on Pauley’s desk. “They’re all different, though, right? All the students. That’s part of the point of humans, that you’re all different.”

Something about that sounds off, but Pauley has a bit of a headache and can’t pin it down. Maybe he has a migraine. He’s never had one before, but an ex-girlfriend used to get bad ones, and she claimed that they made her see auras around things. That might explain why there’s an odd shimmer around Dr. Fell, and a vague shadow around Crowley. Maybe the incoming pressure front is giving him a migraine.

“Look,” he says, rubbing his temples, “I get that you care about Miriam’s education, and that’s great. But I can’t cater to every student’s quirks and personal crises. Every student and his or her parents has access to the rubric. They can track their point totals online. And I give points for effort. If they can’t succeed, then maybe they should look into private or charter schools.”

“Bollocks,” says Crowley. “Absolute bloody nonsense. How can you tell who’s trying hardest? It’s stupid to pretend that everyone has the same set of chances starting out. It was a terrible system in the beginning and it’s just as terrible now. You can’t judge everyone the same, not when they start out so different. You can’t just be like ‘oh, _that_ one’s fine, but _that_ one deserves eternal damnation.’” He appears to have forgotten the teacher entirely and is ranting at his husband. At least the air feels less heavy now.

“Dearest,” Dr. Fell says with a sigh, “I’m not going to defend ineffability here in this classroom. You _know_ I’m sympathetic to your points.”

This concession is insufficient to check Crowley’s momentum.

“And adults would be bad enough, but kids! You can’t just expect kids to know everything. They’re _kids!_ They need all that time to learn things. Even Adam took eleven years. And you can’t expect them all to be the Antichrist.”

“Sometimes it feels like it,” says Pauley with a strained chuckle. He’s not sure why Miriam’s (presumably Jewish?) uncle is talking about the Antichrist, but it’s probably yet another in-joke. Instead of ignoring it, this time he tries to regain some purchase on the conversation with a bad joke of his own.

The two stop arguing and turn to stare at him. When Pauley looks back on this night, as he will for years to come, his main thought will be _why did I decide to remind them I was there?_

“My _point_ is,” says Crowley, “Infinite variety is one of the best things humanity has to offer. And kids learn in different ways.”

“Thank you, I’m aware,” Pauley responds. Then he compounds his mistake. “Anyway, our time is up, but if you have any further concerns, you’re welcome to contact Principal Gates to set up a meeting.”

It shouldn’t have been the wrong thing to say. Any parent or guardian with enough pull to get an appointment with the principal this week would have already done so as their first step, and Dr. Gates has already told him that none of his kids’ parents have meetings with her. And these two don’t even live in New York, so they won’t be around long enough for the principal’s schedule to open. If it ever does. Gates is hard to pin down. 

“Oh!” says Dr. Fell. “What an excellent idea.” He beams at Pauley, who can’t help but smile back. The man might be stuffy and odd, but there’s something intensely likable about him. Maybe they can end this on a high note after all.

“We need to wrap up, but thank you for coming to see...” he trails off as he hears footsteps down the corridor, followed by a knock on the classroom door.

“Come in!” Pauley finds himself saying the words exactly in sync with Dr. Fell, who gives him another glowing smile.

The door opens to reveal Jeffery Ward, the principal’s assistant. “Hi, um, are you Dr. Fell and Mr. Crowley?”

"Depends," says Crowley. What an asshole. 

“It, uh, appears that you have a meeting with Dr. Gates right now?”

“Oh, _do_ we?” Crowley asks his husband.

“Why yes, we do.”

Jeffrey looks at the two of them. “Sorry, normally we have a confirmation process after you make an appointment, but I must have forgotten to check that button when I put you on the calendar, and somehow I didn’t notice your meeting until now. Is it still a good time?”

“An excellent time, wouldn’t you agree?” says Dr. Fell as Crowley takes his hand to help him out of his chair. 

“Sure, why not,” says Crowley.

After the pair follows Jeff down the hall, Pauley sits and stares at the doorway for a good five minutes. Theoretically he could go home now, but the principal may want to talk with him after her meeting. Even if she doesn’t, he should check in with her about it. He’s not worried about losing his job—there’s a whole process, and this isn’t the level of screw-up that would bypass that—but even though Karen Gates has only been principal here for a year, she is more than capable of making his life hell should he piss her off. Sometimes Pauley wonders just what she did with her life before entering the field of education—her CV is remarkably vague in places—but he’s never quite had the courage to ask. So it’s probably a good idea to stick around until the meeting is done, and then he can apologize or whatever. And maybe he’ll get some confirmation that this whole thing is as weird as it feels.

He loses track of time, grading quizzes, and he actually jumps out his chair when there’s a knock on the open door. From across the classroom, Dr. Gates looks as polished as ever, but as she draws closer, he can see the sort of bone-deep weariness that normally only arrives after a week of overtime shifts followed by a trans-Pacific flight in economy class. 

“I’m not sure whether I want to fire you or give you hazard pay,” she says when she reaches his desk. “Fortunately, the union won’t let me do either.” Before he can respond, her pocket dings, and she pulls out her phone, staring grimly at the screen. “And there’s the promised reading list from them.”

“I guess that’s to be expected from a bookseller?” Pauley offers.

“What? No, it wasn’t him, it was the other one. Crowley? Apparently he became an expert on education when taking care of some American diplomat’s kid, and now I have to go to the library tomorrow.”

“You’re doing an assignment based on some guy’s experience as a glorified au pair?”

Gates gives him a ghastly smile. “No, Martin. _We’re_ doing an assignment based on some guy’s experience as a glorified au pair. I’m not doing this book club alone.”

“You really think he’s going to check?”

“I think I don’t want to risk it. I didn’t get the sense that he’d do anything dangerous, but…” She swirls her finger around the screen, and he hears the faint ping of his own phone receiving an email. “There was just something spooky about him.”

“At least the husband seemed nice enough,” Pauley offers. Dr. Fell is weird, but he was easier to deal with, and despite himself, Pauley rather liked him. But Gates shakes her head.

“He might be less of an outright asshole, but a man who smiles like that while someone else does the dirty work? He’s the one that’ll shiv you while you’re distracted.”

Pauley really does wonder what Dr. Gates did before this, but maybe he’s best off not knowing.

“Anyway, come see me at lunch tomorrow. We’ll go over the reading.” She walks away, her steps a little less brisk than usual, and then it’s finally time to go home.

Almost.

He sees two figures walking down the long hallway and freezes. For a moment he wants to turn and run in the opposite direction, but there are still some students leaving the building with their parents, and if anyone sees him running away from two seemingly innocuous middle-aged men, it will not be good for his reputation. So instead he just walks quickly down the hall, looking lost in thought, pretending not to see them.

It almost works—they’re engaged in their own conversation and don’t seem to be paying attention until they’re almost in front of them. Then Crowley stops and gives him a wide, oddly toothy grin. There's something off about the way his mouth stretches, and the shape of his teeth. Maybe it's another migraine symptom? 

“Oh, I forgot,” says Crowley. He takes out a piece of paper, traces his finger along the bottom. There’s a brief smell of sulfur. “Signed progress report. We discussed it!”

Pauley takes the paper almost automatically and looks down at it. He can’t make out the signature—it doesn’t even look like letters—and it appears to have been burned into the paper. If Pauley had the capacity left to be anything other than exhausted, he would wonder at this, but all he wants to do is go home and go to bed. Crowley flashes that unsettling smile at him one last time, then saunters away, arm around his husband's shoulder. 

Pauley doesn’t remember his dreams that night, but he wakes up again and again, sweating and uneasy, and starts the day wishing he hadn’t bothered trying to sleep at all. He tries to cover it up; he used to teach hungover all the time, back when he taught English in Japan, he can hide a little tiredness. But one of the students—Miriam of all people!—seems to notice.

“Are you okay, Mr. Pauley?” she asks him in class that morning.

“Fine,” he snaps, then feels bad for snapping. “Thank you for asking.”

“Hmm…” she looks up at him for a moment, then shrugs, a motion oddly reminiscent of her creepy uncle. “You’ll probably feel better soon.”

What a strange kid.

Still, she’s right. He starts feeling better that evening, and his sleep returns to normal. Mostly, anyway. It’s a long time before he dreams of anything but shadows and teeth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Most American middle schools actually have separate teachers for each subject, but school districts are always trying new ways of handling middle school because middle school is The Worst. And two of the four middle schools I attended were structured like Miriam's, with one main teacher and different teachers only for art and PE/gym. And math, but Miriam happens to also have Mr. Pauley for math. So for simplicity's sake, let's say that 13 years in the future, the NYPS system is experimenting with this arrangement. They'll probably go back to class-switching in a year or two.


	3. Chapter 3

“I’m home!” Miriam finds the two of them in the living room. Instead of her usual smile and offered hug, she stands in the doorway and gives them a long thoughtful look.

“What?” asks Crowley.

“Is something wrong, my dear?”

Hands on hips, she asks, “what did you guys do to my teacher?”

Crowley shrugs. “Nothing really. Just some general foreboding, maybe a nightmare or two.”

“You _guys_. You can’t just go giving people nightmares! It’s mean.”

“He deserved it. He said—” Crowley cuts himself short, not wanting to repeat the teacher’s words to Miriam.

She rolls her eyes. “I know, he thinks I’m lazy.”

“He said that to you? Time for another meeting.” Crowley is going to give him something that will make those nightmares look gentle.

Miriam shrugs. “It’s not like I _believe_ him. You guys and my moms and most of my other teachers know it’s not true.” She frowns. “I’m not sure that’s the case for everyone in the class. So maybe it’s okay that you scared him a little. But I don’t think nightmares will actually make him a better teacher.”

“Of course not, that’s what the reading list is for. The nightmares are because I don’t like him.”

Miriam stares at him until he sullenly gives in. “Fine, I’ll stop. Mostly. No promises about side effects.”

“She’s right, Crowley, you can’t just torment everyone you dislike.”

“Excuse me? I’m not the one who almost zapped him with heavenly wrath.”

Aziraphale sniffs. “It’s not _zapping_ , as you know perfectly well. It’s _smiting_. There’s a _difference_.” He gives a slightly guilty smile. “He would have deserved it. But still, thank you for checking me.”

Miriam shakes her head. “I can’t take you guys anywhere.” Her stern expression would be more successful if the corners of her mouth weren’t twitching up.

“Then why do you keep bringing us everywhere?” Crowley asks.

She grins at him. “Because you’re great. I _like_ having you around. Just try not to smite people. Hug?”

Crowley keeps his word and lifts the premonition of doom from her teacher. But he’s still annoyed at the man and his “rubrics.” What’s the point of humans if they all have to act alike? He might as well have just stayed in Heaven. Or Hell, for that matter. You’d think that for all its horrors, it would at least be interesting, but there’s only so many ways to be cruel, and demons haven’t figured out most of them yet anyway. They’re not very good at learning from humans.

*****

A couple months later, they’re visiting for Hanukkah. It’s too cold to relax on the roof, but the three of them are in the living room, listening to Yael fry chicken in the kitchen and waiting for Naomi to come home.

“Oh, so I got my term paper back today. Thanks for the scanned newspapers.”

“It was no effort at all,” Aziraphale says with a sidelong glance at Crowley. The angel had not only found the newspapers and had Crowley scan them, he’d also translated the French ones for her. (And asked Crowley to check the translation. Fortunately, Aziraphale reads the language better than he speaks it.) Seeing thaty Crowley isn't going to contradict him, he continues. "They were helpful, then?"

Crowley thinks he can detect a little bit of glee in Miriam’s voice as she answers.

“In more ways than one! Mr. Pauley asked me a bunch of questions about them, like he didn’t believe that I’d actually read them.”

“He genuinely suspected you of academic dishonesty?” asks Aziraphale, looking horrified.

“That’s it,” says Crowley. “Time to do something that will _really_ scare him.”

“Wait a sec, I wasn’t finished telling the story!” Miriam holds up a hand. “I told him that they came from my uncle Zira’s collection, and that Crowley scanned them, and if he wanted to know more he could talk to you guys. And then he stopped asking me about it.”

Crowley and Aziraphale exchange satisfied smiles. It’s rare that Miriam will let them intervene in her problems, and Crowley is pleased to have had the chance. Even if she stopped him before he’d gotten to carry out any of his better ideas.

“Are you sure I can’t go talk to him again?” asks Crowley, just in case.

Miriam narrows her eyes. “Define ‘talk.’”

Crowley does his best to sound wounded. “Why are you giving _me_ that look?” 

“Because Miriam knows that I’m the nice one,” interjects Aziraphale with his most irritating smile.

“ _I’m_ not the one who tried to smite her awful teacher.”

“I didn’t try. I merely considered it. Had I made the attempt, it would have been successful.”

Crowley waves a hand at him. “The _nice_ one, he says. That’s what he said right before he sent the army human off.”

Aziraphale looks mildly chagrined. “I’m sure he went somewhere pleasant. Eventually.”

Miriam perks up. “Is this part of the whole world-ending thing? When are you going to tell me that story, anyway?”

“Er, when you’re older?” Crowley looks at Aziraphale, who nods.

“Aww, you always say that. Anyway,” Miriam continues, returning to her paper, “I don’t think he liked my topic much, but he said that I’d earned an A based on my impressive bibliography. It’s hard to argue with citations!”

She takes something out of her backpack.

“Oh hey, Zira! Adelaide made you a drawing. She’s really into drawing angels right now, and she thought you might like one, because you collect bibles. I, um, didn’t tell her anything, it was all her idea. I didn’t even laugh when she brought it up!” She hands Aziraphale a piece of paper. "The flaming sword was my idea, though!"

The figure on the paper looks nothing like Aziraphale—he/she/they are tall, very thin, and angular, with long flowing silver hair and four golden wings. The sword burns blue, and is much more ornate than Aziraphale’s ever was.

“Doesn’t look like anyone I know,” Aziraphale comments with visible relief. “But she is very talented.”

“Right? She’s the best artist in our class. Way better than me.”

“I like your art,” says Crowley, who has an entire gallery of Miriam’s drawings on his refrigerator.

She grins at him. “Thanks, I like my art too. But I’m just drawing for fun, and Adelaide’s really serious about it. She wants to be a comics artist when she gets older. I think I’d get sick of drawing if I had to do it all the time.”

“Well, whatever you want to be, you know that we’ll support you,” Aziraphale says.

“It’s not too late to have a localized reign of terror,” Crowley adds. “Crushing all the nations of the world beneath your heels is overkill, but we could probably manage that town Yael and Naomi like to visit in the summer. The one with the waterfalls and the botanical garden. You could be the Dread Tyrant of…wherever.”

Miriam giggles. “I was thinking more like marine biology, or maybe becoming a librarian.”

Crowley waves a hand. “Sure, that’s all fine too. Just so long as you know you have options.”

“That’s true!” says Naomi from the doorway. “You don’t even have to go to med school!”

“When did you get here?” asks Crowley, wondering how much of the conversation she overheard.

“Just a couple minutes ago. Something about conquering the Finger Lakes?”

Crowley shrugs. “She’d do better than most of the dictators I’ve met.” Then he suppresses a wince—now he’ll have to think of a plausible explanation for why he’s met so many dictators. But Naomi just gives him that odd thoughtful smile and tells everyone that it’s time to light the candles.

*****

Dinner conversation mostly centers on plans for the Chanukah party in two days, but over dessert, Yael asks Miriam about her term paper. Miriam retells the story between bites of Rukiye’s nut cake. 

“By the way,” Yael says, “They had another round of parent-teacher conferences last week, and Mr. Pauley was so relieved to see that it was us that I thought he would faint.”

“We ran into the principal, too,” adds Naomi. “She says to tell you thanks for the reading list, it was unexpectedly informative.”

Crowley smirks.

“I think you really did help,” says Miriam. “Not just me, but the other students too. He’s nicer to Lexi now when she spaces out, too. And he stopped making us bring our old homework to every test.”

“Why was he doing that?” asks Naomi.

“I think because Lexi doesn’t always do hers and he got annoyed. So she and Lyle kept almost failing their tests, even though they could answer all the actual questions, because they’re really disorganized and Mr. Pauley kept taking points off their test grades for not having old homework. It used to make Lexi cry.”

“That’s awful!” Naomi says.

“Yeah. So it’s good that he stopped. I’m glad you guys talked with him.”

“The next conference is in early March,” says Naomi. “Maybe we should let you take that one, too.”

“We’d be delighted,” says Aziraphale.

“I think Naomi was joking,” says Yael.

“Too late,” Crowley says. “We already agreed.” Maybe he can use some of those ideas after all. 

“These cakes are delicious,” says Aziraphale, forestalling any further protests. “Rukiye should open a bakery.”

Yael smiles. “That’s her plan, actually, now that her case has been decided in her favor. I was beginning to think it would take a miracle to resolve everything.”

Crowley glances over at Aziraphale, who looks suspiciously innocent as he takes another piece of cake.

“How lovely,” the angel says. “Everyone should have a chance to realize their potential. Don’t you agree, dearest?”

“Eh.” Crowley shrugs. “It’s certainly more interesting that way.”

Naomi gives her odd smile again. “Yeah, but you actually like humans, don’t you? People, I mean. Other people.” (It will be another month before he remembers this conversation and notices her choice of words.)

“Not even a little,” he says, lying out of habit. Then he remembers he doesn’t have to. “Maybe a little.”

He’s not going to admit it, but he likes people a lot. They’re never boring, and there’s always something new to learn.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading my silly story about supernatural beings encountering the US public school system. And as always, a million thank yous to everyone who has continued to read this series so far, and even more thanks to everyone who has given me an idea or request!


End file.
